


Bloodline

by Viscariafields



Series: Mageblood [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Stillbirth, canon level violence, pregnancy loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-08-20 08:49:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20225098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viscariafields/pseuds/Viscariafields
Summary: The night before leaving for the Inquisition, it occurs to Hawke she might be pregnant. When she arrives in Skyhold, she still can't be sure either way. Her stomach hadn’t exactly been reliable on the journey from Tevinter to Skyhold, which could be taken as a sign. The old ladies in Jader who saw her vomit outside the stables certainly gave her knowing expressions. Then again, old food kept in a hot sack tied to a horse supplemented with cheap Orlesian street eats wasn’t a diet known for settling stomachs. The same stress that would stop a woman from bleeding was the kind of stress that might make her throw up her breakfast enough that she would stop eating it all together. So she couldn’t really be certain of her condition when she arrived in Ferelden and presented herself to the Inquisitor.





	1. Skyhold

**Author's Note:**

> This is a followup to a little one-shot I wrote about Hawke and Fenris maybe being pregnant. That one-shot was fluffy and happy-- this fic is not! If you want to imagine them happily having babies, this fic doesn't tell that story. <strike> Maybe if I'm convinced to write an epilogue </strike> I did write an epilogue!

Almost a month after leaving Fenris, and Hawke still couldn’t be sure either way. Which, really, if she thought about it, and she didn’t, probably tipped the scales in one particular way. Her stomach hadn’t exactly been reliable on the journey from Tevinter to Skyhold, which could be taken as a sign. The old ladies in Jader who saw her vomit outside the stables certainly gave her knowing expressions. Then again, old food kept in a hot sack tied to a horse supplemented with cheap Orlesian street eats wasn’t a diet known for settling stomachs. The same stress that would stop a woman from bleeding was the kind of stress that might make her throw up her breakfast enough that she would stop eating it all together. So she couldn’t really be certain of her condition when she arrived in Ferelden and presented herself to the Inquisitor.

The Inquisitor hated her instantly. It was almost a relief, to have it be so quick rather than to have to earn it over time. She found herself outside of Skyhold, having been summarily thrown out after a debriefing that lasted mere minutes. Cassandra, bless her, tried to protest as she saw Hawke wandering out, but Hawke really couldn’t find another interpretation of “Get out of my castle,” and Cassandra had to agree. So she watched the people go in and out of the fortress she had just spent a month riding toward. She was grateful for the rest.

She should have seen this coming. Varric had told her the Inquisitor was Dalish, and she knew the clans talked. And everyone had read that damn book by now. Back in Kirkwall, Hawke had waffled with Merrill, never truly understanding why she or her people were doing any of the things they were doing, and then every hunter in clan Sabrae attacked her at once. Her Dalish diplomacy might have been garbage, but Hawke was an old hand at being attacked. She had dragged Merrill home, the woman first in shock and then weeping inconsolably. Hawke bought her pint after pint and drank them herself when Merrill refused, spilling the entire debacle to Varric until Fenris half-carried her home.

Not her finest hour, but these days she couldn’t exactly call it her worst. Bottom ten, probably.

Hopefully.

Lavellan had called her the Butcher of Sundermount. A better title than the one she had. She could hardly be the champion of a city she had accidentally helped blow up and then fled.

Speaking of, she started undoing the straps on her Champion’s outfit. She had thought to look the part for the Inquisition, but that had clearly been a mistake. Lavellan herself had looked like she was playing dress-up as a human, walking around in strange gold pajamas that she clearly wasn’t used to, the way she rolled her shoulders in discomfort at the fit and picked at the cuffs of her long sleeves. She couldn’t dress up that hand, though. That eerie glow set Hawke’s teeth on edge.

She wasn’t ready to depart for Crestwood just yet—her horse was resting in the stables and she wouldn’t begrudge him a good meal and a night’s sleep. So she’d camp out, maybe steal a fresh horse and some supplies in the morning. Coin was clearly flowing into this organization, and it seemed doubtful that Cullen Rutherford would take this opportunity to send someone after her for the first time.

It was a surprise when he showed up at her camp himself.

“Champion,” he greeted her.

“Commander.”

He eyed her meager setup and sighed, rubbing his neck. “This…” he gestured toward the enormous walls and her little tent outside, “Reminds me of how you arrived in Kirkwall, honestly.”

Hawke had arrived in Kirkwall with her mother, her sister, her dog, and Aveline. This was nothing like that. “I suppose these days, most people would prefer to have me outside the walls of their city. Or radical militant religious organization, as it were.”

His boots crunched in the snow as he shifted his weight back and forth. A bit more antsy than she remembered him. A lot more feathered, too. “You don’t have to stay out here. I can find you a room out of the way. Or you could stay in the barracks. The Inquisitor doesn’t go there.”

“It’s rather nice out here,” she responded lightly, “Brisk. Though the smell of rotting goat spoils it a little. Or maybe that’s just Fereldan ambiance. It’s been so long I can hardly remember.”

“Yes. Ah. We’ve had a small problem with the Avvar.”

“Really? The Avvar? I’d think a tiny holy person with the ferocity of a quillback would win their affection rather quickly.”

“She did, actually. But not before the goat.”

“Ah.”

They both let their eyes settle on the rotting carcass. A waste, really, and it was starting to turn Hawke’s stomach.

“So, Champions notwithstanding, your Inquisitor is doing well, is she? Diplomacy and all that? Winning hearts and minds and beating them to death if she can’t?”

He gazed into the distance, his brows slightly furrowed as he said, “She is who we need her to be.”

Hawke suddenly felt so desperately sad for the Inquisitor. Ten years ago, she had been hired by one lazy dwarf to kill some Tal Vashoth, and somehow that chain of events led to her becoming Champion of Kirkwall. Lavellan had done even less to deserve her fate, and they were calling on her to save the world. No, they were _ demanding _ it.

Cullen continued shifting around uncomfortably. “We both know you can sneak into the fortress unseen. And we both know that you’ve already been to my office to steal a map and my helm for some reason.”

Her eyes drifted to the helm sitting out on top of her pack. Large, gaudy, uncomfortable, impractical-- a complete waste of space among her stuff, really. The maps she had needed. The helm was more of a reflex. She offered it to him now, and he took it, sighing again. He did that a lot.

“If you were to find yourself in my office around supper, I think you would find an agreeable meal there.”

“Why, Cullen, I had no idea you’d been holding a torch for me all these years. There were easier ways to get me alone than to be named Commander of the Inquisition.”

“The Champion of Kirkwall saved my life more times than I can count. More importantly, she gave me a chance to perform restitution for my soul. I am indebted.”

“How thoughtful of her,” she muttered. Maker, the man was serious. She hoped he’d lighten up during supper, at least.

~~

Hawke lowered herself through the holes in Cullen's roof, trying not to dislodge any rotting shingles. She supposed she could have just used one of his three doors, but where was the fun in that? His bed had been meticulously made up, the coverlet folded just so, and Hawke couldn’t believe this was where he really slept. Was he hoping to die of pneumonia? So much for saving his soul or whatever, if he was just going to cough it away.

She climbed down the ladder silently enough that Cullen didn’t raise his head from his work. He’d added a small table to his office since she sacked it this morning. It was set for three, thank the Maker. One of the door handles jiggled, and Hawke slid herself into a corner. 

Cullen jumped when the door opened, banging his knee on the desk with a clash when his eyes landed on Hawke lurking in his office. The poor kitchen servant reacted like he’d been struck, apologizing profusely for surprising the commander while quickly laying out the meal he’d ordered. A Fereldan dish, by the smell of it. It almost turned her stomach again, until she realized she was starving.

Varric showed up as the servant left, Maker be praised, and Hawke finally got a hot meal. Two, in fact, once Cullen gave up on eating his. She wanted nothing more than to quietly eat this food next to a man she loved and another she tolerated, but both of them seemed intent on talking. Even after all these years with Fenris, she had never mastered the art of silent brooding in friendly company. She felt the need to participate.

“If you had known at the time that Cassandra intended to make me Inquisitor when she hired you on as commander, would you have accepted the job?”

Cullen leaned back in his chair. “I did know. I was more worried that you would refuse me as your commander.”

Hawke tried to imagine it. She’d never had strong opinions about the knight-captain. He was a templar, which she didn't care for, but he’d never forced her into killing him, which was a point in his favor. He’d defended her against Meredith. Perhaps he was a little late, there, but frankly Meredith was a little late in deciding Hawke should die. She should have made the call years before. So the part that was hardest to imagine was not _ Cullen _ being her commander, but the idea that she would command anyone at all. Even as Champion for three years, not a single person had _ ever _listened to her.

It was for the best, probably.

“Well, I think we can agree the Inquisition is better for having found someone else. _ Anyone _else.”

Cullen nodded seriously. “Inquisitor Lavellan is not who I would have imagined for the Herald of Andraste, but she had taken to the role admirably.”

Varric snorted. “You mean she kills demons like a rabid druffalo that upended a beehive and otherwise does anything Cassandra and Leliana tell her to do. You should see her in the field, Hawke. She reminds me a bit of Fenris, actually.”

“Maker’s breath, now there’s a thought. Inquisitor Fenris.” Cullen shook his head, as if the idea was too dreadful. Hawke narrowed her eyes. “But I see what you mean—the sword, the glowing. Andraste help us if she learns how to make the anchor rip a man’s heart out.”

If Fenris were here, he would hate this conversation. He would respond with something biting, like, _ Is that all I am? Pointy ears, a sword and the markings? One wonders why I bothered to develop a personality at all. _ He would have said something better than that. He would have made Hawke laugh, and put a hand on her knee, leaned in close, and said something incredibly accurate yet devastating about the commander. And Hawke would be laughing instead of sitting here and wondering if she was going to get to keep all the stew she ate or if she’d be seeing it again later.

“You should have brought him,” Varric said to her, reading her bitter thoughts, “Having an elf at your side might have softened the Inquisitor up.”

The brief glimpse of Cullen’s joviality dried up. “Was the meeting really that bad?”

“Honestly, Curly, I was surprised she didn’t throw _ me _ out of the Inquisition at the end of it.”

“Well, she’d hardly be the first person who tried.” Varric snorted again, rolling his eyes as Cullen continued. “A sparring match between the Inquisitor and Fenris would have been good for morale.”

“Maybe you could suggest a match with me,” Hawke offered, “I’m sure kicking my ass would improve her mood. Plus, by the transitive properties, it would mean she could kick the Arishok’s ass, so that should improve her standings. Not to mention I’ve also already kicked Corypheus’s ass, even if it didn’t take."

“I’ll, ah, I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

Hawke was warming up to the idea. Let her get a few good swings in, bolster confidence in the Herald, maybe even assuage a little of the guilt that Hawke definitely didn't feel regarding the Dalish. "Do you think it would also make her the new champion of Kirkwall? That would be a load off."

“Andraste's ass, Hawke, if you're offering yourself as a human sacrifice to the Inquisitor, then it's a great thing you didn't bring Fenris. The Inquisitor already hates you and you're asking for her to give you a beat down? She’d kill you, and then he'd kill her. And he'd kill me for letting it happen." Varric took a deep breath and shook his head, "Come to think of it, he also would have killed Dorian on sight.”

Cullen chuckled. “That might have been good for morale as well.”

Hawke didn’t have to ask to know Dorian was a mage of some sort. She thought of the last conversation with Fenris before she left and the potential baby with potential magic she was schlepping across Thedas. She should have told him. She still wasn’t sure. Maker help her, she just couldn’t be sure. She took a ragged breath. “Can we… can we not talk about Fenris anymore, please?”

Varric snapped his head around to appraise her. “Don’t tell me you left on a fight. I thought things were going well in your brutal and bloody version of paradise.”

“They are,” she said, unconvincingly, “Nothing like the constant murder of blood mages to really bring people together.”

“And nothing like an ancient darkspawn magister to really drive them apart.”

“Something like that. It was a long road to get here. And…” She took a sudden shaky breath. _ Stop talking. _ But her mouth rarely listened to her brain, preferring instead to skitter around like a fennic in a cheese house. “I just… I just miss him.” She bit her lip to keep herself from blubbering on like a child, horrified that there were actual tears in her eyes. Three weeks on her own had been too long. No one to talk to but her horse and the Breach in the sky. She hadn’t been alone for that long since… since… She pressed her hands to her eyes, forbidding herself from thinking about the days after her mother was murdered. Why had she rejected his offer to come? She needed him here.

She felt Varric’s warm hand pressing on her shoulder. “Hey, easy there, Hawke. I’m sure he’s fine.”

It hadn’t even occurred to Hawke that _ Fenris _ could be not fine at this moment. He wasn’t alone. Even if the few friends they’d picked up abandoned him, she’d left him the mabari. But Fenris didn’t exactly regulate himself when it came to slavers, and Porthos was almost 15 now. He was _ old _. Fenris could have tried to take on an entire cabal by himself, both of them dead just the day after she left, and she wouldn’t know about it. She choked back a sob.

The men were at a loss.

“Curly? A little help here?”

“Could we send for him?”

“In Tevinter?”

“Maker, that’s where she was hiding? _ Why? _”

Varric’s hand began rubbing furious circles on her back as she tried to suppress the pathetic quivering of her chest. “I was hoping for something a little more, I dunno, immediate.”

“I think I have some wine, here.”

She heard the sound of the bottle being opened, glasses being poured, but her stomach lurched at the thought. “I’m fine,” she croaked out, her words punctuated by shaking breaths, “I’m just really tired from the road, and I guess it hit me all at once.”

She could see the two men sharing looks with each other. Had she ever cried like this in front of Varric? She wasn’t exactly known for bursting into tears without warning. Awkward and ill-timed jokes, maybe. She’d broken out in daggers plenty of times. Massive internal trauma that one time. But sobbing at a reunion dinner? Cullen proffered her a handkerchief, and she took it, wiping her face liberally.

“Will I see you in Crestwood?” she asked Varric.

“Probably. Lavellan’s been dragging me all over Ferelden. Although…” he shook his head and patted her a couple of times, “After today, she might just leave me behind. She has a tendency to do that when she’s peeved. She does not like that I am friends with you.”

Hawke nodded, still trying to get her emotions under control. Despite saying she wanted to go to bed, she realized she really wasn’t ready for the solitude again. Varric took one look at her face and said, “Oh, come here.” He gathered her into his arms in the sturdiest hug she could imagine. She tried to remember that warmth as she climbed into her sleeping roll outside of Skyhold.


	2. Crestwood

At least the road to Crestwood wasn’t _ boring _. Muddy, smelly, lonely, crawling with undead and demons, but these were still better than boring.

Hawke seemed as well-hydrated as the land, stopping to urinate approximately every 15 minutes. And every time she dismounted her horse, a corpse found the need to argue with her. Fighting the undead always felt a little awkward. Hawke wondered whose kind grandmother she was shanking repeatedly. She liked to make up stories about them. This skeleton used to knit sweaters for the geese she kept on the farm. That zombie used to take five sugars in his tea. This tenacious horde was once a traveling singing group who met their untimely demise when they unknowingly sang a normally well-received ditty criticizing the empire in front of a traveling chevalier.

Her pack was heavy with the books she had swiped from Cullen’s office. Out of habit she had taken ones she thought Fenris might like, including one horrible looking tome titled “The History of the Templars.” Now that she had time to reflect, she decided this had been a stupid decision and she should drop the books in the first home she came upon. Let the villagers be well-educated; she would rather read Varric’s new trash, whatever it was.

As she secreted a book onto a stranger’s bedside table, trying not to drip water in their home, she had to admit that her real favorites were published diaries—snippets of plain and simple lives and all the drama and heartache and triumph their owners poured into the page. She’d also read a number of unpublished diaries, starting with Bethany’s when they were children and continuing on to the journal she had in her hand now, in which a farmer had touchingly written about his first child with the entry, 

_ First snow of the year came early. Lost a sheep to the wyverns. Wife delivered healthy baby boy. Bean soup again for dinner. _

It was a shame Cullen hadn’t kept one.

It would have made the rainy days in Crestwood a little more tolerable.

The Inquisitor caught up with her after two soggy nights, but Varric wasn’t with her. Hawke hid from view and tailed them, watching their slow, muddy progress. The Inquisitor had brought a solemn elf who was clearly in love with her, a jubilantly rowdy elf who was not, and a mage in outlandish clothing, presumably Dorian. She admired the way his magic seemed to burst in small, flashy, and completely unnecessary explosions as they fought off some hapless bandits, and she knew Varric was right. Fenris would have murdered him on sight.

When the Inquisition crew decided to capture a castle, Hawke decided to find Stroud. She wasn’t ready to get thrown out of yet another dilapidated fortress. Especially in this rain.

Loneliness did not appear to suit Stroud, either. He pulled a sword on her, which was a cold welcome for an invited guest. She told him as much, grateful he lowered his blade so that she wouldn't have to use the dagger she'd pressed to his flank. _ That _ would have been awkward to explain to the Inquisitor. “No! Truly! I don’t go around murdering _ everyone _ I meet! Only about fifty percent, really. Shackles? Already? I understand.” And then once again Fenris would have been forced to come down from Tevinter and murder the lot of them. The bloodstains alone would take a year to clean up. 

She looked the Warden up and down. “Shouldn’t you be, oh, I don’t know, trying to hide your identity?”

Stroud merely stared at her, his mustache like a permanent frown.

She tried again. “It seems like chucking the armor for something lower profile might help with the whole hiding thing.”

He huffed in the way of all Orlesians educating their crude Fereldan counterparts. “I do not agree with the Wardens’ current course. That does not mean I am ashamed of my part in the organization.”

“That’s not really what I meant,” Hawke muttered. Another overly serious man. It had been a fine quality when all she wanted was for him to look into the red lyrium problem. Now that she had to spend an entire night in a cave with him…

“I see _ you _ are still wearing your Champion’s gear.”

“Yes, well, the Exalted March to deal with the Champion of Kirkwall didn’t really live up to the last one. More of an Exalted Stumble, followed by an Exalted Shrug, with the finale of an Exalted ‘Actually, Hawke, Turns Out We Need Your Help Again.’”

Stroud snorted, and the conversation ended there.

“Do you have any news of Bethany?”

He did not. He couldn't even be sure where she was-- whether she was in the Anderfells, or if she had joined whatever plot Clarel had undertaken in the Western Approach. And if she was in Orlais, Bethany believed she was dying. For a Grey Warden, the belief and the action were essentially the same; They believed they were dying so they sought death. And Bethany was out there. 

Perhaps getting thrown out of a fortress would have been a better choice than spending the night in this cave. Stroud was stern, quiet, and equal parts Orlesian and Warden. There was a reason she referred to him as ‘contact’ and not ‘friend.’ Now that she thought about it, and in the stifling silence of the cave, she had a lot of time to think about it, Stroud had been present for two key moments in Hawke's life: the loss of her sister to the Wardens, and the night the Qunari made her Champion. Sitting in a cave with him gave her a feeling of unease she couldn't quiet. She told herself it was the fact that Wardens attracted Darkspawn, and fighting the Darkspawn was nothing like fighting the undead. Not grandmothers reanimated by stupid spirits so driven to fight that they’d inhabit any old corpse, but humanoid monsters born or tainted and driven to kill and recruit. They were soldiers, lost in the fight. They were children, dragged underground and raised in darkness. They were her sister, in a few years' time. 

Stroud didn’t have a horse, so in the morning Hawke returned to the village to procure one. She hated to do it in a town like this. Every horse had a job, and every job was essential. To buy a horse was to doom a household that was already so down on its luck as to be desperate. She overpaid for a tired-looking fellow, knowing full well she’d have to trade him as soon as they found a bigger city with younger, sturdier stock and hoping that when the Inquisition arrived to man their new fortress, coin and fortune would flow in as well. Maybe she could leave a note to Varric or Cullen, see about helping these people. At least get them their horse back.

She arrived at the cave as the Inquisition team got there. Lavellan’s fists clenched on seeing her, so she hung back to the shadows. She’d already heard everything Stroud had to say anyway. She was more interested in seeing how the Inquisitor responded. 

The Inquisitor seemed… fine. The whole world on her back, and she was still standing. She had the muscles for it, Hawke supposed. It was strange, even a little stupid, but Hawke felt somewhat protective of the woman. Felt a little responsible for the whole thing. Given that her blood had set Corypheus free, she supposed she was. 

Lavellan seemed to have good companions around her, people who made her laugh, but Hawke’s early days had been full of laughter, too. She was just a lowly blade for hire then, doing anything for coin, and she’d had real, tangible goals. Nothing so vague as “stop the leaders of the city from succumbing to madness.” As time went on, everyone seemed to fall apart. Isabela and her lies, Merrill and her clan, Anders. Even Aveline had responded to the stresses of the job and a fractured city by retreating further into her understanding the world as black and white, the laws clearly delineating the only path forward Only Fenris seemed to grow stronger with time. 

But Lavellan’s companions were driven by more than just a need for coin and survival in a hostile city. They were believers, probably, despite appearances and evidence. And, importantly, they all seemed very much against explosions. Explosions were bad. Hawke didn’t believe in much of anything these days, but she felt solid about that one. 

As the Inquisition left the cave with plans to meet up in the Approach, Dorian lingered, dropping something at Hawke’s feet. “How clumsy of you, dear woman,” he said, giving the item a significant look before running off after his companions.

It was a letter from Fenris. He opened with updates on his work, vague enough that he could be anywhere, doing anything. But he was well. Alive. She felt the tears pricking at her eyes and tried to shoo them away so she could read. 

_ I wish we had more time to talk about what we discussed before you left. I’ve thought about it more now, and I believe the premise of your original question was faulty. As I said, I have known your sister for over ten years, and during that time I have come to think of her as my own. I care for her as any brother would, which is to say I love Bethany, magic or no. I should have ridden South with you for no other reason than to ensure her safety amongst the Grey Wardens. _

_ Come home, love. Finish what needs to be done, but come home. _

_ I love you like the surf loves to crash on the shore. I love you like the gulls love to interrupt my morning sleep. I love you as Varric loves stories, as Aveline loves rules, as Isabela loves boats. _

_ Porthos sends his regards. _

The rest of the page was filled with an enormous inked pawprint and at the bottom,

_ Yours, Always, _

_ Fenris _

Hawke held the letter to her chest, a warmth spreading from her heart.

Of course, the discussion was moot now. She had bled on the road to Crestwood. Not much, but enough to convince her that all of this was just the stress of life on the road after years in a feather bed. She was surprised that she had felt a little sad about it. Obviously with the sky torn open and Orlais at war and the Grey Wardens marching toward death, it wasn’t the best time to bring a child into the world. But then, that first year in Kirkwall, she had thought the world was ending. It was only a matter of time before the Blight would reach the Marches, and where would they flee to then? She lived in a haze, day to day, surviving and waiting. And the end didn’t come. The Blight was defeated, new problems arose, and life went on. Yes, the hole in the sky was terrifying, but Hawke rarely felt real fear these days. And maybe the only time for anything was now.

Getting a letter to Skyhold was easy enough, but Hawke had no means of getting a letter back to Fenris. Still, in her head, she began drafting her rebuttal. _ I love you more than Varric loves lies, more than Aveline loves punishments, more than Isabela loves… _ She couldn’t use lies twice. Cheating at cards? Whiskey? Her own—

“Are you ready to leave this place?” Stroud asked her. His horse finally saddled and ready and already looking weary under the weight of the Warden. Hawke mounted her own steady mare, and the journey was begun. 

Once, just traveling from Lothering to Kirkwall seemed an impossible feat. Now, she was apparently headed as far west as west went. She felt a peculiar fluttering in her belly as she pondered it. 


	3. Western Approach

_ Dear Fenris, _ Hawke wrote in yet another letter she wouldn’t send, _ At this point, the parchment I write this on is better company than the man I travel with. He is as dull as a century-old caprice coin found in a pocket in Darktown. He is dimmer than the abandoned mines surrounding Kirkwall. He is as dreary as scaling Sundermount during a month of bad storms. He is the type of man who could hold his own in a conversation with Aveline about blades. _

Hawke could not have imagined a worse ride west. Somehow, having a companion made her feel even lonelier than on her trip from Tevinter. Probably because the man didn’t talk, unless to chide or lecture, and as he refused to disguise himself, casting aside neither the Warden armor nor the telltale mustache, they stayed away from cities and towns where inns with hot food, baths, and warm beds awaited them.

Instead they found sleep in abandoned places, caves full of spiders or farms burned by the war. Their pace was grueling. Often by the end of the day, Hawke found herself too tired to do anything other than climb into her bedroll. She would wake in the middle of the night, hungry, filthy, desperately needing to relieve herself, and she completed the task of maintaining her body with only the moons for company. 

But after some time on the road, she started to adapt. She had spent each day trying not to let her bladder slow them down, struggling to hold it to the point of her thighs threatening to suffocate her horse as she clenched, and then her body adjusted. Her stomach settled, and her appetite came back, perhaps a little too well, because now her Champion’s armor was growing tight. But what was the point of having fifteen buckles on one chest piece if not to readjust? Just one more discomfort in a fortnight of bathing only at night in streams and lakes, clothes not given long enough to dry and worn damp, legs permanently shaped to a horse’s back, and a companion who said little other than to give commands. 

He wouldn’t even share any Warden stories. Called them secrets, which was bullshit, because Anders had told her hundreds of stories that gave away nothing of the order other than their fondness for alcohol. Maybe the man didn’t have any friends, and thus no stories worth telling. 

Maybe he wasn’t even really a Warden, just a taciturn lunatic leading her to the edge of the world. 

No, she reminded herself, he’d taken Bethany and turned her into a Warden, so he must be one of them. And thinking of Bethany reminded her _ why _ she was on this awful expedition. 

Her little sister, her only family, was in danger. Hawke was not going to fail her again. 

It was only when Stroud seemed to take pity on her, or maybe the horses, that they rode a shorter day. And on those days, Hawke tried to write letters. 

_ Dear Merrill, _ she wrote in a letter she might probably someday send, _ The Dales are beautiful. I can imagine you here, among the ruins of your people. _ She scratched that part out. _ When Varric talks of elves frolicking, I think this is what he imagines. I think that even Fenris would feel the urge for a quick leap through the trees. A bit of a cavort. A gambol, or even a romp. Something about the forest stimulates rather frisky desires. Why, I saw two demons blowing bubbles at each other, as if for sport. Was almost a shame to stab them. _

_ Dear Merrill, Should you ever decide to come to Orlais, do yourself a favor and stick to the parts with trees. Anything west of that is not worth it. _

_ Dear Bethany, If I spent a fortnight traveling with the most boring Orlesian in the world only to find that you are already dead, I will travel to the Deep Roads myself to excavate your remains and kill you again. I will scatter your ashes over Orlais and Tevinter. I will break into the Fade to find your spirit and drag it back. For your sake and mine, please be alive. _

_ ~~ _

“Of course I was telling the truth,” Fenris’s voice was flat, his face as empty as a stone’s. And he was lying. Hawke held his gaze as the light from the campfire flickered over his features, daring him to crack. “I would never lie to Varric,” he pushed.

“Is that so?”

“It’s why I always lose at cards.” 

Hawke barked a laugh at that, throwing her hand over her chest. He always won, dammit. He was so much better at making her laugh than she was at making him. 

“Let me see it then.” 

“Hmm?”

“The dance you choreographed in your mansion. You must show it to me.”

Fenris smiled a little at this, then nodded, his decision made. He shuffled behind him before handing Hawke his lute. “Only if you play.” 

“You know I’m a miserable player.” 

“It will suit my dancing perfectly.” He stood, positioned his feet and held one arm in the air. “At your leisure.”

Unsure of what style of dance he was about to bless her with, Hawke plucked out a song that had been popular at the noble Kirkwall parties, trying to play by ear. At her first strum, Fenris began to dance some sort of jig with exaggerated movements. She could tell by the way he added flourish upon flourish to his bows to an invisible partner that he was mocking the way the nobility danced. Ignoring the flagging rhythm of her music entirely, he clapped to a beat all his own. He looked ridiculous-- like a bird calling to a mate with hops and wiggles and wide, sweeping arms. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. 

“Careful, Hawke, this next move was considered especially alluring by the ladies of Minrathous.” 

Fenris began to walk around the campfire performing a shimmy of sorts, his arms thrown wide. Hawke paused in her playing to cover her mouth, stifling the laughter that threatened to choke her. Fenris paused, too, one foot held in the air, waiting for her to continue. “I cannot dance without my music.”

She gave up on the Marcher song and opted for the only piece she ever played tolerably well-- a tavern song from Lothering. Fenris continued on his march of seduction, clapping to the heavens here and there. When he at last arrived in front of her again, she said, “You must have devastated the court with those moves. Marriages and alliances breaking up over the course of a single number.” 

“Tevinter was never lucky enough to see me dance,” he responded, “I would have left a trail of broken hearts behind me.” Hawke raised an eyebrow. “Well. More than I already did.” 

Hawke tossed the lute to the side, getting to her feet. “You joke, but I absolutely believe you. Just look at Kirkwall. Isabela will never be the same.”

He smiled at her wickedly. “It is not her heart that I broke.” 

“You--!” 

Fenris pulled her close, heat radiating off his body. She gasped, a wavering breath that gave her away as her heart pounded in her chest. “I warned you it was alluring,” he murmured against her ear. 

Hawke awoke with a start. Maker, and she had just been getting to the good part of that dream. She had demanded he teach her the steps to the dance, but instead he had taken her to bed. She closed her eyes, her heart aching as she remembered. Outside Stroud was getting breakfast started by the sound of it. She would receive no dances from _ him. _

The Approach was a nightmare of wind and sand. Hawke wondered if Lothering looked like this now, or if it was somehow worse. Fields of grain turned to poison or ash or just bones. When it came down to it, the undead she fought were never beloved grandmothers. It was the poor, the uncared-for, the lonely, or the just-too-many-to-burn. Their reanimation was a final insult on a life that ended with no dignity or mercy to spare. 

They were Carver.

At least Lothering probably wasn’t full of blood mages. Bethany wasn’t among the ones they found out in the ass end of abandoned Tevinter nowhere. Just some Venatori who talked too much and ran, leaving an easy trail behind. She closed her eyes to the carnage. They weren’t her sister, but they somehow were. Somewhere someone didn’t know that their brother had just let himself be slaughtered so that someone’s daughter could be bound to a demon. But Hawke knew. She needed to find Bethany fast. 

And then there was Varric, who didn't come with her. A weird punch to the gut, that. Obviously he had traveled here with the Inquisitor, but now that they were both in the field she had sort of assumed… But the Champion never had an army, and Varric had never joined up. He was Inquisition now, even if the Inquisitor was watching her with both hands on her sword in a pose of unrestrained aggression, so she kissed his cheek goodbye and tried not to feel like she had somehow lost something. 

Hawke and Stroud traveled at night to avoid the blasted winds of the Approach. Of course, having a Warden with her meant every stray darkspawn converged on their position, and they saw more battle than they had for all of the Dales. It was good for her nerves, and it seemed to loosen Stroud’s tongue. He was uncharacteristically chatty, plying her with all of six words as they rested between fights. “This must be difficult for you.” 

“Keeping the sand out of my hair? Keeping my mouth shut long enough to kill a darkspawn? Or following a man who leaves a trail this obvious and not getting to kill him myself?”

“I meant leaving Varric behind.” 

Hawke sighed, cursing herself for being that obvious. “Oh, yes. It’s a little difficult being split up like this. I thought he’d want to join me. But he’s a true believer in the Herald and he’s chosen his path.”

“You do not share his belief that the Herald was sent by the Maker? If that is the case, why come all the way out here for the Inquisition?”

“My sister might be out here, and if the Wardens convince her to give her mind to a magister, that will be my fault.”

Bethany had always been afraid of her magic. But she was smarter than this. Hawke had to believe she was smarter and _ better _than this. 

As if reading her thoughts, Stroud said, “If I did not know of Corypheus and his influence, I might have been persuaded to give my life for this plan. I cannot help but hope that Varric is right about the Herald.” 

Hawke tried to bite her tongue, but bitter words she’d held in for weeks suddenly found their way to the surface. “I think that it was very convenient that a woman who can heal the sky was discovered the same day the sky broke. If Andraste wanted us saved, why allow the Breach in the first place? Just send someone who could actually kill Corypheus before he blew everything up and be done with it.” Her thoughts turned dark, thinking about Kirkwall. She supposed by her own logic, she was decidedly not sent by the Maker. Facilitated an explosion, let loose a magister on the world, not to mention the red lyrium… maybe she _ should _ let Lavellan kill her. Maybe it was divine justice. She snorted. “But Varric needs hope. And he found it in her. I think he’s looking for grace. A miracle. And for his sake, and for my own, too, I hope he’s right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, I'm failing to embed a gif here, so I'm going to make a comment of how I imagined our glowing blue friend dancing while mocking the Tevinter nobility.
> 
> Edit: nevermind, I can't get these gifs to appear at all =/


	4. Skyhold II

After they had scouted the Wardens at Adamant, Stroud began giving her strange looks on the road. She could feel his eyes lingering on her, looking her up and down. Well, she supposed she had started to fill out a bit, if the buckles of her armor were to be judged. Perhaps that’s what it took to get the Warden’s attention. And as much as she really didn’t care about his attention, he stopped complaining when she ate too much or ate only the pickles or all of their dried pears. He even offered her his own food when she showed a particular preference. He no longer pushed as hard riding, opting for a slower trip back, and he often took care of her horse for her at the end of the day, stopping her from lifting the heavy saddle and shooing her away. 

Hawke always found it funny how men considered her perfectly capable until they fancied her. One minute it was, help me kill this blood mage, I can’t do it without you, and the next it was, please stop killing blood mages, it’s too dangerous and blah, blah, blah. But it was sweet, really, that he'd grown fond of her. She hadn’t been sure he had that in him. His back was always so straight she had a hard time imagining him bending at all for another. Shocking that he would choose her, but loneliness will pick worse targets, given the chance. 

As much as Hawke wasn't the type to lead anyone's emotions astray, Maker, did she need the rest after the grueling pace they'd kept on the ride to Adamant. So when he suggested they stay in an inn for the night, Hawke agreed, ready to kindly but firmly reject his forthcoming advances. It was a small price to pay for a hot bath. 

She waited in the tavern while he replenished their supplies. She ordered them both dinner, and he arrived soon after. She could tell a sentence or two was rumbling through his mind, and she gladly let him work out what he wanted to say while she attacked the stew in front of her. Perhaps her table manners would put him off this fool venture. Finally, his hands folded and resting on the table, his eyes looking at anything but her, he spoke. 

"Children are not often born to Grey Wardens," he began, and Hawke could have cried in laughter. The effort of keeping her breathing easy and holding her face neutral brought actual tears to her eyes. Was he truly going straight for a proposal of marriage? Not even trying to bed her first, the noble idiot. We won't have much, but it will be ours? Tiny little mustachioed children in blue armor play-fighting archdemons tumbled through her mind. 

"But it does happen,” he continued, “And even Wardens who are sworn to their duty… ah… take time and rest. To prepare. For… ah. The baby." 

Hawke had truly lost the thread of this faltering proposal. “I imagine they would need to. Knitting tiny socks, that sort of thing.” 

Somehow, this comment seemed to relax him a little. "Exactly. Obviously, you know your limits. But perhaps… a slower road back to Skyhold might be in order." 

Hawke blinked. What did Grey Wardens having babies have to do with their path to Skyhold? "You think that I…" She started to piece it together. The looks, the help, the food… the man wasn’t trying to woo her, he was chivalrously trying to _ help _ her. Because he thought that she was… he believed she could be… 

Stroud frowned at her. "I'm afraid it is something you will not be able to hide much longer." 

Hawke fought the urge to stare down at her own body. She also fought the urge to ask Stroud the what month it was. How long? How long since she had last seen Fenris? How long before she had a… a… 

"I'm going to have my bath now," she said, relatively certain she seemed offended rather than panicked. Stroud stood up from the table as she did, a pointless holdover from his pointless noble, chivalrous youth, and Hawke walked as slowly as she could manage to the bathing chambers. 

She reached them at a run, locking the door behind her and pressing her back to it. Couldn’t be. Couldn’t be because she had bled, and then she had felt better. But she hadn’t bled since Crestwood. But she _ had _bled. Her mother had not been forthcoming about bodies and bodily functions and the precise nature of having babies, but this she had been clear on. 

Hawke stripped, hands feeling over the foreign curves of her body. There was a copper mirror in the room, and Hawke slowly, deliberately, looked herself up and down. As her tightening armor had informed her, she had grown thicker in places. She just hadn't realized how specific those places had been. Her breasts had swollen to seemingly double their size, but more concerning was the bump, rather more than a bump, that was not a sign of a well-fed belly but a baby. A baby. Here. In her. 

Oh Maker. Why _ now _ ? Bethany was out there, possibly enslaved to a madman, Fenris was unreachable and so far away, Varric had joined a radical military cult, and the only other person who knew was _ Stroud _. 

She took her bath, but was too numb to enjoy it. Oh, she had some questions for her mother. _ There were some key details you left out, Leandra. _ But angry as she was at her, her mother would have known what to do. Hawke hadn’t really seen a baby since the twins. They needed… things, but Hawke didn’t even know enough to ask what kinds of things those might be. How was she supposed to do this without guidance from her mother? Fenris didn’t have parents, either. Useless. She had spent so much of her life winging so many different things, but _ this? _ A baby? 

She put her head in her hands and began counting. It’s not like she was certain in the first place when she stopped bleeding, and if bleeding was fake and babies came anyway, it would be impossible to know when, exactly, this whole thing happened. Was it that time when she woke up in the middle of the night, unable to remember where they were or how they got there, and Fenris’s whispers and caresses turned from comforting to stirring, her fear giving way to need and heat? Or that time she stumbled onto the scene of him bathing himself, his dark, sinewy muscles glinting sunlight, and she had laughed and stared until he tired of her hungry eyes and went for her hungry mouth? Or maybe it was the night she left, when she was already uncertain of whether she was carrying his baby, but she was unquestioningly going to miss him, every part of him, every minute while she was away? 

Probably it was just an average day, when they had finished the work of stealing freedom for a few more people, just a few more, and they fell into each other's arms, as likely to just sleep as to make love. 

Her best guess was five months at most and three months at least. So she was probably about halfway through it, all told. She chuckled at that, a desperate laugh with her hand sitting lightly on her belly. Halfway through and she hadn’t even _ known _. Not so difficult after all, was it. There it was, growing and hanging on as she rode horses and stabbed corpses and fought demons. A little fighter. She still had so much more to do, but if it made it this far, halfway, then maybe she could trust it to make it the rest. 

She dipped her head under the water to scrub the road out of her hair. She had at least three or four months to deal with this, and in any event, she didn’t have time to worry about a baby right now. It was a future problem or blessing or whatever, but Bethany was in trouble _ now _. So she’d focus on that. And maybe, if she found Bethany, and she was still alive and not enthralled and toting demons around, maybe Bethany had picked up some midwife magic, could help her through it. Could tell her the details that their mother missed. And if not, well, at least she’d have Bethany to muddle through with. To serve as a cautionary tale for. Again. 

On her comfortable tavern bed with a real pillow, she dreamed of Fenris. "Will she be tall like me, or short like you?" she asked him. 

“We are the same height, love.”

“Exactly.”

He huffed, the small puff of air hitting her cheek. She took his hand, and wondered why she felt so sad. 

“Will she come out human or elf?”

“Human, they say.” 

He ran a finger over her round ear as if to make the point. A shame. She should look like her father. 

"Will she come out Tevinter or Fereldan?" 

"If you aren't careful, she'll come out Orlesian." 

Her own laughter woke her up. 

~~

In the last city before Skyhold, Hawke went shopping. Her armor wouldn’t fool anyone for long, least of all Varric. And.. it’s not that she wouldn’t tell him eventually, but she didn’t want _ anyone _ to know. Especially when Fenris… Fuck. The entire Inquisition finding out before Fenris felt wrong. She found a tailor peddling simple clothes, and tried to describe what she wanted. Something… forgiving. Hawke took off her armor to get her measurements done, and the woman suddenly understood. 

“Layers,” she said, “Lots of layers. And a high waistline. Nothing fancy, but for a few weeks yet you’ll just look like you’ve put on a bit of weight.” 

Hawke sighed in relief. She paid extra to have the first dress ready tomorrow, and anything else sent to Skyhold soon after. 

Stroud looked at her approvingly as she ditched her armor for the final stretch of riding. “It will be good for the people of the Inquisition to remember what they are fighting for. Children are a blessing from the Maker himself.”

“Maker’s breath,” she laughed, holding in an eyeroll with such force she worried she’d tumble backward off the horse. “I’m not having the baby at Skyhold. Can you imagine? The Inquisitor already wants me dead. Can’t imagine how she’d feel about The Butcher of Sundermount having her elf-blooded baby there.” 

“_Elf _-blooded? I thought that… nevermind.” 

Hawke broke out in a grin at the idea of Stroud trying to guess who she’d been boffing in her spare time. Should she draw it out? No, the answer was too obvious. “Don’t tell me you thought that I was having Varric’s baby.” 

He appeared to be blushing. “You two do seem very close.” 

"There are limits to even our friendship." 

He cleared his throat. “If not Skyhold, then where will you go?” 

“By my count, I have a few months left to figure that out.” And to figure out what to tell Fenris. She thought back to the journal she had read in Crestwood. _ Bean soup again for dinner and by the way, you're a father. _ She had a method of contacting him, but it was meant for emergencies. Using it would bring attention to him, put him in harm’s way, and she might not be able to use it again after that. This wasn’t exactly an emergency. She wasn’t injured or dying, there was no one going after him. But he should know. He would want to know. 

Plenty of women must have had to write this letter to their far-away husbands in the past. How would they phrase it? “When you come home, do not be alarmed by the stranger I am holding in my arms. You’re going to want to have a go with him, too.” 

But they were both away from home. Or rather, they had no home. Her home was his arms, and his home was her heart. 

Tears started welling in her eyes, and she cursed. Knowing her sudden weepiness of the past few months was the fault of the baby did not suddenly stop her from weeping. If anything, she felt more foolish about it. 

“So you intend to raise the child alone?” 

“What?” Hawke had forgotten Stroud was even there, so easily did he blend into the landscape. 

“The apostate seems otherwise occupied…” 

“Who?” 

They stared at each other while Stroud opened and closed his mouth like a fish. “Apologies. You said elf-blooded, and I assumed…” 

She racked her brain. An elf apostate? “Solas? You think I fucked the Inquisitor’s boyfriend and now carry his child? Maker’s breath.” 

“You did say she hated you.” 

Hawke laughed in earnest. “For totally unrelated and accidental elf slaughter. No. After we go to Adamant, I will ride north and meet up with the father.”

She hadn’t called him that before. The word just tumbled out of her mouth like the most ordinary thing in the world. She smiled. 

“The ex-slave,” Stroud muttered, shaking his head. 

“So you _ have _ read the book. Figures.”

~~

“What are you wearing?” Varric asked her. Back in Kirkwall, he’d rarely been invited to all of the soirees that required the Champion. And even then, half the time she’d just worn her armor anyway. He’d probably seen her in a dress a handful of times, and those were much finer than the one she donned now while waiting outside the war room and trying to avoid Josephine Montilyet’s piercing yet striking gaze. 

“My leathers are getting repairs,” she said, adjusting her shawl to drape it in front of her just so, as the tailor had instructed her, “And Skyhold is freezing.” 

She was wearing her new dress, with the low neckline meant to distract and the high waistline meant to conceal, a loose cloak over it, and on top of that a shawl whose ends draped nearly to the floor. She was meant to look like a heap of fabric with some cleavage, and not like a woman hiding an entire other person under her skirts. Stroud had just shaken his head at her getup, but it had worked on Cullen, at least. She was awarded with a blush, a stammer, and then he left her alone, deciding to wait for the meeting in the war room. Varric was unfortunately a bit too short to truly appreciate her newly impressive bosom, so she had to hope the layers at least altered her silhouette.

Shockingly, Varric’s full attention didn’t seem to be on Hawke and her changing body today. His thoughts had turned to personal guilt, blaming himself and Bartrand for the red lyrium. Hawke wondered if she was tacitly included in the debacle. It did remind her a little of the seven magisters, breaking into heaven only to find the Blight. Only it was Varric, Bartrand, Bethany, Anders, and Hawke, and instead of forcing their way across the Veil, they simply walked underground. There hadn’t been any signs on the thaig saying “Stay out! Apocalypse inside!” How was he to know? 

She sighed. “That’s what happens when you try to change things. Things change.”

The Inquisitor walked in then, covered in dirt and stained with grass. Her eyes were dulled, like they couldn’t focus where she needed them. The rumors throughout Skyhold differed on the method of murder that took out her entire clan, whether it was blood mages or red templars or a dragon, but they all agreed that clan Lavellan had been lost. Hawke had surprised herself by bursting into tears when Varric told her the news, and now just the sight of the woman had her sniffling again. She of all people had no right to mourn for another lost Dalish clan. The Inquisitor would never want her pity.

“Inquisitor!” Josephine waved the woman over. Hawke shifted uneasily on her feet. It didn’t seem like the right time to try to talk business with her. It seemed like the right time to have their meeting without her, or to at least delay it for a year or two. 

“Don’t call me that,” Lavellan muttered, her eyes finally landing on the ambassador.

“Pardon?” 

Josephine looked as if she truly hadn’t heard what she’d said, confusion wrinkling her brow. Hawke felt the rushing in her blood, the sudden violent tension in the room. There was murder in the Inquisitor’s eyes, directed at Josephine, so Hawke did what Hawke did best. She opened her mouth. 

“I just wanted to say…” she quickly stepped between them. “I know we have our differences. But I also lost my family, and if you ever want to talk--” 

The punch didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. Maybe grief had weakened the elf’s arm. Hawke had expected to find herself eating dirt, or stone, as it was, but she kept her footing even as she saw stars and the blood began dripping from her nose. Someone practically threw a healing spell at her, hitting her with a gentle ‘whumph’ as the Inquisitor was escorted from the room. The bleeding stopped, and Hawke delicately probed her nose to find it was more or less still in the right place. 

Stupid. What if the Inquisitor had chosen to punch her in the stomach? 

Varric gestured for her to lean over, already shaking out a handkerchief. "Couldn't dodge the world’s most obvious punch?" He began wiping the blood off her face. 

"I guess the dress slowed me down.” Varric rolled his eyes at that. Hawke sighed. “I figured if she got it out of her system, she'd be less likely to attack the ambassador. Now _ that _would be a waste of a breathtaking nose. Antiva might go to war." 

Varric passed her the handkerchief, “I’ll let you, ah, get the rest.” 

She looked down to see blood splattered across her chest and snorted. _ This _ was why she always wore high necklines. 

“Your own nose is still worth something you know. Maybe not all of Antiva, but at least half of Kirkwall. And there are other ways of letting people grieve without using yourself as a literal punching bag.”

Hawke dabbed at her chest and sniffed. It was annoying when he was right. 

"Hawke I… I just need you to take care of yourself." 

"I am, Varric." 

"Yeah, that's what worries me." 

"I mean I will." 

He shook his head, taking the bloody hanky back from her, and she went into the war room to give her report. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I wish I could make little asterisks to Hawke's thoughts and have Fenris respond to whatever complete bullshit she's thinking. I just imagine him in Tevinter, suddenly having telepathy with her and completely losing his shit. "Well, yeah, I'm pregnant and on a mission to fight an evil magister with an archdemon, but that's not like, an emergency or anything. /shrug"  
Fenris: ...??????? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


	5. Adamant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's where the content warnings come in for pregnancy loss. It's not written in too much gory detail, but this is the chapter.

Her Champion’s armor well and truly didn’t fit now. No amount of fussing with the buckles would fix that. Everyone was gearing up for the battle, and she couldn’t get her leathers on.

Maybe it was a sign. Slow down. Hang back. Let someone else take the lead. She hid in the shadows outside the makeshift armory, trying to decide, when she saw the Inquisitor walk in. Dead-eyed, she held up her own ruined armor, shredded. Hawke eyed her lover, the healer, and saw the way his feet dragged, how his shoulders drooped. Top two members of the Inquisition were barely standing from the looks of it. She waited for them to leave before trying to get some armor for herself.

“Hawke?” Cullen had spotted her. Maker, the man looked awful. Probably hadn’t slept since she last saw him at Skyhold. Probably hadn’t eaten, either. His own armor wasn’t fitting quite right. Third member of their top fighting forces looking like shit. What was the Inquisition doing to people?

“Commander. Just… trying out some new leathers,” she said, holding them out in front of her, hoping to hide her enormous belly.

“I’m glad you’re here. Your presence will improve morale.”

This man. Always so serious. “Is morale a problem?”

“Nobody is enthusiastic about attacking the Grey Wardens.”

“Of course.” Maker help the man that attacked her sister, be him Inquisition or Warden. No, Hawke was going to get in, find Bethany, and go. And if Bethany wasn’t there, then she’d kill a few demons, take the pressure off. Not like they were asking her to take on Corypheus again. And she had an entire army at her back. A tiny kick to her abdomen told her that the baby was game, the little fighter. Just get in, get out. Stay high on the ramparts and out of the fray. 

But the army at her back didn’t stop the Inquisitor from plunging her into the Fade. 

She shouldn’t be here. All at once it hit her how stupid she was. A baby in her belly and she was fighting spiders in the _ Fade. _ Couldn’t someone else have done this? Couldn’t anyone else have done this? Bethany wasn’t even _ here. _ Stroud should have known. He should have told her. And now she was arguing with him, in the _ Fade _, and he looked as terrified as she did. 

"Just stay behind me," he said. But that wasn't how Hawke fought. She didn’t hide behind shields; she hid behind enemies. She had daggers and darkness, the element of surprise and quick feet. But her body was unbalanced, her feet were swollen, and a demon with that many eyes and that many legs didn't rightly have a back to stab. 

She felt it, when the demon known as the nightmare slapped her body to the side. She hit the stone wall, and she felt it. Much like when the Arishok had thrown her all those years ago and it had felt like her organs burst under the pressure, killing her slowly enough to outlive him. This time, it felt like something became dislodged. But it wasn’t just something. It was… _ No. _ She picked herself up—the fight was still on, pain racking through her abdomen or not. But she felt it. She felt the moment her child died. 

Her belly had gone silent. There was pain, yes, but no more flutters or kicks. The battle was on, but her little fighter was silent. 

There wasn’t time to think about it, there wasn’t time to _ fix _it. Lavellan needed someone to stay behind, guard their rear. Why shouldn’t it be her, now? How could she face Fenris after this? It had started already, the throes of the ending. How could she tell him what she had kept from him? What she had lost for him?

Stroud looked at her, that chivalrous asshole, and he gave himself instead. _ There was no point _ , she wanted to tell him. _ I should die here, too. _ But instead she was biting her lip to stop from crying in pain, and she was bodily pushed out of the Fade before she could even say goodbye. 

~

Hawke’s hand was gripping his shoulder so tightly, Varric was sure it was going to bruise. He looked at her warily, but she had turned pale, her other hand clutching her belly.

“I need a healer,” she gasped.

She’d done this before, after the Arishok. Survived the battle standing triumphant only to collapse the minute nobody was watching her. Blondie had said her organs had been crushed. Varric didn’t speak to Fenris for a month after that, but Hawke hadn’t held a grudge. Shit, she might have volunteered herself for bloodmatch, if he’d given her the chance. Much like she’d just volunteered to stay and die in the fucking Fade, apparently pretending like that last blow hadn’t knocked all the fight out of her. 

Solas looked like crap, barely standing on his own, so Varric asked for directions to the healers’ tents. He’d miss all the action and the important decisions, but Hawke let out a groan, and he couldn’t trust her not to die on him in the worst place in the world. She spent less than a minute in the main healing tent before she was ushered out of it by an older woman who gestured for her to enter a smaller, empty tent. Another woman quickly followed, running supplies back and forth, and Varric lingered outside, not really sure what was going on or whether he was needed for this. He heard Hawke cry out, and made his decision, pushing his way into the tent. 

A stern woman blocked his path. “Are you the father?” the older healer quipped, arms crossed.

“The what?”

She drummed her fingers on her arm in impatience. “The _ father _. If you’re not, you’ll need to leave.”

“Let him in,” Hawke called.

She had already stripped out of her borrowed leathers and replaced them with a loose tunic. She was now struggling to get her breeches off, finding it difficult to reach around her own protruding belly to get them untied. The healer helped her strip while the shoe dropped in Varric’s head.

“Oh, _ fuck _.”

Hawke was given something dark and bitter by her reaction. Varric was pretty sure he recognized the brew-- strong stuff given to people in the worst pain. Already Hawke’s eyes seemed to be glazing over. 

“Won’t that affect the baby?” he blurted out. Did he really just say that? Was this really happening? Hawke was… Hawke was having a baby? _ Here? _

The woman didn’t turn around as she said, “That is no longer a concern. There’s naught we can do now but get this over as quickly as possible. When she’s ready, and it will be soon, you’ll stand on one side of her and I’ll stand on the other.”

The other healer was trying to talk to Hawke, attempting some form of magic, but Hawke was not cooperating. “No,” she moaned, “No, no, no, no.” She began to pace around the room, wincing in pain. “You need to write Fenris. You need to tell him… Maker, I didn’t tell him. He doesn’t know.”

She looked like a caged bird, ready to pluck her own feathers out than submit to captivity.

“Okay, Hawke, I’ll write him. But right now you need to focus on this.”

“No. No, I can’t do this without him. You need to send for him.”

Hawke continued pacing as Varric stood there, stupidly. Occasionally she groaned, and her feet grew unsteady with the powerful potion they had given her. But she still paced, seemingly unable to stop. The younger healer began walking with her, steadying her on an arm, and Hawke alternated between fighting her off and leaning heavily on her. 

“I need Fenris. I need… I need him.” She was moaning more often now, and for longer. This was happening too quickly. Varric was certain this was supposed to take longer. 

“Messere, you need to stop pacing now. It’s time.”

She shook her head, “No. I can’t do this. I won’t. I won’t.”

“Hawke, you need to listen to them. They know how to do this.” 

She jerked away any time they tried to touch her, and Varric knew even in this state she was still capable of breaking his nose. And he was certain that even if he magically procured a griffin to fly Fenris to this tent in this Maker-forsaken abomination of a fortress, Hawke would respond by claiming she needed Bethany. She was drugged and panicked and injured and about to experience something _ awful_. 

“_Leandra_,” Varric finally tried, calling her by her first name for the first time in duration of their friendship. It worked; he caught her attention, her wild and desperate eyes turning angry. “Fenris isn’t coming. He’s not here. We’re doing this together. It’s you and me, kid.”

She settled a little, her breathing steadying. She nodded to him, looking younger and more terrified than he’d ever seen her. The healer got Hawke’s arm around his shoulder, her other arm around the woman’s waist.

Hawke got to the business of—well. He wasn’t sure he could really call it a birth. There was screaming, sweating, crying, moments of rest, but it wasn’t a birth. The end result was small, too small, and still. Too still. Too quiet. It never had a chance. Hawke leaned on him and sobbed and moaned, and he watched the healer take the little babe off to the side to clean it up and prepare it for rites.

Varric wiped the sweat off his face, and was surprised to realize it was mostly just tears. The woman who still braced Hawke laid a hand on her abdomen, healing magic ready, and she swore.

“I’m sorry, serrah, but you aren’t done yet.”

Hawke simply let out a pitiful moan, a word that might have been _ No_.

“Not done?” Varric asked.

The healer gave him a grim look. _ Shit. _ Of course Hawke would have to have _ twins_. A potion was tipped down her throat, to heal her or fortify her, he didn’t know.

It was faster this time, if somehow worse. Any resolve Hawke had mustered had crumbled when her first child came out dead. She was wordless sobs and gasps and Varric would have paid any sum of money to never see her like this. The healer caught the second baby, equally small, equally still and quiet as the first. Hawke was sobbing again, probably hadn’t stopped for the last hour, but now it was almost over. A few more instructions from the healer, which Hawke was too weak and tired and beaten down to protest, and the bloody work was done.

He half-carried Hawke over to the bed and helped her into it. She looked lost, completely lost. Behind him the women were still cleaning the babies up, wrapping them in the only garments they would ever wear. Varric closed his eyes. He promised her he would write Fenris, but what could he possibly say about all of this? How could he write down what had happened here tonight? If it was a story, her story, he wouldn’t. Just leave it out, with other details too personal and horrible to include. Hawke entered the Fade, fought a nightmare, saved the day, went home to Fenris. Varric watched, and celebrated, and eventually wrote it down. That was the story. That was their story. 

One of the healers began working on Hawke again, giving her something to drink while her magic glowed over her body, and Hawke started to doze off. The other woman wasn’t done cleaning up the babies, and he watched her wipe a quick tear from her face.

Varric walked outside, put his head in his hands, and he wept.

After a while, a young Warden passed by, looking dazed. Varric had no idea how much time had passed in that tent, two entire lifetimes by his count, but evidently the Wardens were still here, still leaderless, and still eager to follow directions. “Find me a pen, parchment, and ink,” Varric ordered. “And when you come back, don’t let a single person enter this tent.”

The young man nodded and rushed away.

~~

Hawke stared at the two little creatures bundled up and placed in her arms. People bundled up babies when they came into the world, and they bundled up their dead for cremation. For her twins it was one and the same.

Two more dead Hawkes.

Wrinkled as they were, and small, too small, they looked more like Fenris than her. Maybe it was their permanently furrowed little brows. She touched a finger to a tiny hand, perfect fingers with their little fingernails. She choked out a laugh that turned into a sob as the thought occurred that these tiny little hands had ripped her still-beating heart out. 

There was a commotion outside of the tent. Odd to think that anything at all existed outside of this small room where the entire cycle of life was completed in a matter of hours. That there could even be more to the world at all, brave deeds being accomplished, monumental decisions being made. Hawke was certain the world began and ended right here. 

“I need to speak to the Champion.” She recognized the voice of the commander and the sound of his boots as he barged his way into the tent.

“Get the _ fuck _ out, Curly.”

Hawke glanced away from her children for only a moment to see him dumbstruck in the entrance of the tent. He started stammering, and she ignored him, giving each baby a last look, a touch on the nose, before she handed them to the healer for the pyre.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, folding her arms over her chest before addressing Cullen. “What do you need me to do?”

“Messere,” the healer interrupted, “If you come with us, the fires are ready. We’ll give them their rites.”

Varric helped her up, and Cullen, still stunned in the doorway, now moved to action to offer her a shoulder. A better height for leaning on than Varric. She limped slowly where she was led. There were large pyres with bodies already on them-- one for the Inquisition and one for the Wardens. She was led past these, to a smaller fire ringed with stones. 

Varric squeezed her hand, strong and warm. She leaned heavily against Cullen, unsure her legs would support her through this. Verses of the Chant hung in the air, swirling with the smoke, occasionally making it to Hawke’s ears. 

_ In the long hours of the night _

_ When hope has abandoned me, _

_ I will see the stars and know _

_ Your Light remains. _

There were no stars to be seen among the haze of funeral pyres. Not that Hawke could have brought her gaze skyward anyway. Two bundles, burning brighter than any stars in the sky held her tethered to the earth. 

_ How can we know You? _

_ In the turning of the seasons, in life and death, _

_ In the empty space where our hearts _

_ Hunger for a forgotten face? _

Fenris would never be able to see their faces. Would he hunger for them? Would he feel this loss as she did? He couldn’t, he couldn’t, because she had denied him that. 

_ I have faced armies _

_ With You as my shield, _

_ And though I bear scars beyond counting, nothing _

_ Can break me except Your absence. _

At some point, Varric shifted to put his arm around her waist, helping to bear her weight. He felt like an anchor, keeping her from just floating into nothingness, finding out where the ash lands after the wind takes it. 

_ When I have lost all else, when my eyes fail me _

_ And the taste of blood fills my mouth, then _

_ In the pounding of my heart _

_ I hear the glory of creation. _

The land was dead and it produced death. All around them were stones that didn’t grow, but shrank as the wind pounded them into dust. The air choked, the water poisoned, and nothing thrived. And Hawke came here, because she also poisoned, and choked, and killed, until there was nothing. 

_ You have grieved as I have. _

_ You, who made worlds out of nothing. _

_ We are alike in sorrow, sculptor and clay, _

_ Comforting each other in our art. _

Hawke had never created _ anything_. Her work, if it could even be called that, was rooted in destruction. The city she Championed was ashes three years later. There was never going to be a different outcome to tonight. Hawke didn’t know how to nurture a baby, but she knew how to kill a demon, and that’s what she did. 

_ Who knows me as You do? _

_ You have been there since before my first breath. _

_ You have seen me when no other would recognize my face. _

_ You composed the cadence of my heart. _

Her children never drew their first breath. By Chantry rules, they didn’t need rites. They never were really born. In the scheme of what happened here tonight, in comparison to the other pyres she passed by, two unbirths were remarkably unimportant. 

Beside her the commander blew his nose. She wanted to tell him not to cry for people who never existed. She wanted to tell him that this grief wasn’t for him, and he couldn’t have it. She wanted to go home. On her other side, Varric wiped his face on his sleeve. 

_ I cannot see the path. _

_ Perhaps there is only abyss. _

_ Trembling, I step forward, _

_ In darkness enveloped. _

The fire dwindled, the ashes were collected. There was nothing left for Hawke to do here. She balanced her weight on her own feet, removing Varric’s hand from her waist. Once more she turned to Cullen and asked, “What do you need me to do?”

~~

"Hawke, say no."

Cullen had stammered out his request, each breath an apology. It didn’t matter. She’d accepted the mission. "There's nothing holding me back now. Why shouldn't I?" 

"Are you joking?" 

Hawke continued staring at the smoldering remains of the pyre. 

"Go home. Find Fenris. Recover. Take a week, take even a minute to think about what you do next. Live to fight another day.” Varric paced back and forth in front of her. “You don't have to fight someone else's war anymore. Andraste's ass, someone else can sacrifice something for once!" 

The sun was starting to come up. The rising smoke was now darker than the greyish light of the sky. "If there was anyone else to ask, they would have asked." 

"Bullshit. The Inquisition has been coming for you since the start.”

“And whose fault is that? Who wrote a damn book about Hawke, the hero of Kirkwall?” The words were angry, but her voice lacked bite. Didn’t stop Varric from wincing and folding his arms. “And what about you? You told me you were going to see this whole thing through. You think the red lyrium is your fault? Then who is to blame for what Corypheus did to the Wardens?" 

"The Wardens did this to themselves." 

They stood in silence, the fortress waking up around them. Hawke had done this to herself. To them. It didn't really matter what she did now. Weisshaupt was as good a place for her as any. 

"Tell him where I went." 

“Don't do this.” 

“Oh, Varric. When have I ever said no before?” She shook her head sadly, wrapping her arms around herself. “I didn’t say no when you asked me to come to the Deep Roads, and I didn’t say no when Bethany asked to join. I didn’t say no when Fenris fed me to the Arishok. I didn’t say no when Anders…” After all this time, she still couldn’t bear to say it. Her part in his plot. Her hands, covered in ash and soot and blood. Not unlike tonight. She took a breath. “Then when he asked me to kill him I didn’t say no to that either. And I didn’t say no when _ you _ called me out of hiding to help the Inquisition. Cullen has asked me to go to Weisshaupt, and I said yes.”

Varric walked off, shaking his head, and she watched him go. She returned to the healing tent to sleep. They had prepared a sleeping draught for her, and she downed it all. She still woke in fits and starts, and Varric was there, pen scratching on parchment, later, his head in his arms, sleeping on his makeshift desk. 

When Hawke finally got up, he was gone.


	6. The Road to Weisshaupt

_ Dear Fenris, _

_Hawke is_ <strike>_fine_</strike>_ alive. She is leading what's left of the Grey Wardens to Weisshaupt. Somehow she’s the highest ranking member of the order despite not being a member of the order. If you leave now, you should be able to catch them on the road. _

_ The short of it is, the Grey Wardens decided to do a blood magic ritual to summon demons and ended up binding themselves to a magister and his archdemon. Hawke and I got dropped in the Fade, heroic shit happened, and the Inquisitor kicked the order out of Orlais. _

<strike> _ Hawke had a _ </strike> <strike> _ She went through _ </strike> _ <strike>We were in the Fade and</strike> _

_ Hawke was injured _ <strike> _ and _ </strike> _ . I'm sorry, Fenris. None of us knew she was pregnant. By the time I knew what was happening, it was too late. There was nothing we could do. _

_ I don’t think she was listening, but the healers say she’ll be okay, that she could try again in the future, if that’s something you want to do. _

<strike>_Tell her_ _You should_</strike> <strike> _ I want to _ </strike>

_ Just take care of her. _

_ Varric _

~~

She saw Porthos first. His joints might be creaky and old, his muzzle grizzled, but when he saw her, he may as well have been a puppy again, his stub of a tail wagging so hard his entire rear swayed with the joy of it. Hawke instantly dropped off her horse, falling to hug the old boy, hold him while he wiggled in her grasp.

She saw Fenris next, a slow approach on those lanky legs of his, and Hawke decided she couldn’t wait for his dignified greeting. She ran for him, meeting him with a full body hug, not caring that she slammed into his chest plate and probably bruised. He swept her momentum into a spin, her feet lifting off the ground for a moment. A number of Wardens whistled at the display. 

Hawke grinned, waving them on to keep walking. Her other hand was tangled in Fenris’s hair. He’d tied a ribbon in it to keep it out of his eyes. “It got so long.” Almost seven months away and that was the first thing she said to him. Stupid.

Fenris smiled at her. “I didn’t have anyone with a dagger or seven to chop it off.”

“It looks good long.”

She dropped her face to his neck, just breathing him in, slow and deep. She could hear the Wardens still marching up the road, passing them by, but here, pressed up against Fenris, after all this time, she was in her own little world. 

“I missed you,” he said.

“I won’t join the Inquisition again. I promise.”

He squeezed her gently. “It seems you have accidentally joined the Wardens.” 

She laughed a little, managing to pull herself away. “I honestly don’t remember how that happened.” 

He didn’t smile. His big eyes looked worried, probing her, and she thought if she stared at them too long, everything would spill out of her. So she turned away. Fenris’s hand gripped her arm, preventing her from moving too far. She stood with her back to him. 

“Hawke, I’m sorry. I once promised that I would always be by your side. I should have gone with you.”

She leaned back into him, and he wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t blame him for anything. 

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

She felt the weight of his unasked and unanswered questions bearing down on her. She had missed him, been aching to see him, and now that he was here, the guilt was overpowering. Why hadn’t she told him? She had thought about telling him, dreamed about telling him, written letters in her mind… but she just hadn’t. 

“I think…” she felt her throat closing up, catching. She knew she couldn’t finish that sentence without breaking down. “I’m going to tell Warden Caron to take the lead. Go on without us. We can catch up after a few days.” Fenris reluctantly let her go, and she gave him the best smile she had. “Find us somewhere nice to make camp, and I’ll meet you there.” 

"Will they survive without you?" 

She knew he meant it in jest, a nod to the absurdity of her current ranking with the Wardens. But suddenly she felt like she couldn't breathe. Normally she would make a quip. She willed herself to say something funny, even if it wasn't that funny. But she couldn't. Would they survive if she left them? Would they survive if she stayed? 

"Hawke." Fenris approached her again, his entire body emanating concern. 

"I'll only be a minute." 

In fact, it took her around thirty to find Caron and then wrangle her wayward horse. Fenris had left to find a place to camp, so she stuck her fingers in her mouth, whistled loud enough to wake the dead, and waited. Soon, Porthos came plodding up. 

"Take me to him, old boy." 

Fenris had already set up a tent and now was preparing a fire. The work of survival was silent and familiar. Take care of the horse, find water for the kettle, clean herself. In action, she could find absolution. But even as she worked, she could feel Fenris's unasked questions stealing the oxygen from her lungs. The fact that he was here at all meant that Varric had told him what happened. 

_ It could be worse_, she told herself. _ He could have read the letter and then _ not _ come for you. _

She sat next to him, her hands on her knees, and he waited. "I'm sorry,” she said, her eyes cast downward, “I should have told you. I wanted to, and it would have been… It would have been better if you were there. It’s my fault." She felt him readying himself to argue, so she held up a hand. She had to get through this. "And I'm sorry--" Her voice caught, and she swallowed hard, the tears coming. Her fingernails dug into her fist, and she gained control of herself enough to finish. "I'm sorry I failed them. I’m sorry I lost them." 

“Them?” Fenris’s voice cracked with the weight of it, and Hawke couldn’t hold her tears back any longer. 

She cried like she hadn’t cried since her mother was murdered, giving her body fully to the grief that rocked her. Back then she had wanted nothing more than for Fenris to hold her, to talk to her, to tell her _ anything _ and to just keep holding her. But he had sat with her for a precious few minutes, saying almost nothing at all, before he left her in that horrible mansion that held all the hopes and dreams of a dead family.

This time he was holding her. She could feel him shaking, his own sobs racking his body, but he was holding her. He held her long after he had stopped crying. He held her despite the snot and tears she no doubt left smeared across his tunic. He held her as the fire got low, the sun disappeared from the sky, the birds went to sleep and the insects woke up. He held her until she moved, to relieve a cramp, to shift position, to gulp down some water, and then he held her again. 

“I’m sorry you went through it alone,” he whispered, stroking her hair, “I’m sorry.”

“How could I love something that never was?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured, “But it’s not wrong that you do.” 

Eventually he coaxed her to their tent, where they could curl up more comfortably. Hawke wasn’t sure if she slept, but the rumble of a snoring mabari and the smell of Fenris’s skin brought her closer to feeling whole than she had in months. 

“Is the reason you didn’t tell me because you thought I couldn’t be a good father?” He asked it so quietly, Hawke couldn’t even be sure Fenris was really speaking. It might have been a dream, a stray thought barging its way into her mind. But in case it wasn’t-- 

“No,” she whispered, “I never once thought that.” 

In the morning she woke with her face buried in Porthos’s fur, the dog still snoring steadily. Fenris was asleep on his back, his face perfectly smooth and slack with slumber. She watched the slow rise and fall of his chest until hunger drove her to stir the fire and set the kettle while gnawing on some hard cheese. 

The freedom to sleep was something she would never deny Fenris. He must have traveled hard to get to her as soon as he did. And she had responded by dumping her grief onto him, increasing his burdens. She could pay him back now in small kindnesses. She set to work on the morning chores: getting more water, gathering more wood, attending to the horse. Then she gathered his clothes and set to mending them. Sewing had been one of the only skills her mother had ever been able to teach her. It was mostly just stabbing something repeatedly, and Hawke was good at that. She was also good at stabbing through her own clothes with her array of knives and daggers, and occasionally allowing others that privilege, and mending was a skill she’d had to use often. A skill she appreciated when her mind was full of gloom and regrets and a simple task could distract her out of it. 

When she heard Fenris stirring, she set the kettle again. He eventually came out from the tent wearing only his smalls, silently sticking his hand out for whatever clothing she had ready. She allowed herself to enjoy the view and quickly take stock. No new scars she could see. Months ago, him standing bare before her like this in a secluded camp away from the world, and she might have gotten ideas for how they could enjoy the day. But now… she simply handed him his clothes. 

“I thought there was something we might do today," he said.

Hawke poured his tea while he dressed. She was certain there was sugar in her pack somewhere, but he took the cup before she could find it. 

"There's a ritual," he continued slowly, "for the loss of the unborn. I know you already gave them their rites, but this is different. It's elven, I think. I… remember my mother doing it." 

Fenris’s memories were still so rare-- she felt awful at having dredged this one up. And Hawke… Hawke had said her goodbyes at Adamant. Her children had been only a potential thing, a future that couldn’t be, and on the long road she accepted this. Or at least, before the sobbing of yesterday, she thought she had. 

Still, they were his as much as hers, and it felt right for him to say goodbye in his own way. "What do we need to do?" 

"It's simple. We make a small shrine of stones, offer the... our... children what comforts they might have received from us, and we say goodbye." 

“Comforts?” 

Fenris closed his eyes, and she knew he was trying to remember. He once described it as pulling threads on a tapestry, and sometimes the entire thing became unraveled before he was sure what he had in his hands. “There was… food. Flowers. And something… she had made. Clothing, I think.” 

Hawke’s eyes were filling with tears again, trying to imagine Fenris’s mother hunched over a shrine, tiny Fenris somewhere behind her, watching. “I didn’t make anything for them. I wasn’t ready.” 

He opened his pack, pulling out a bit of red yarn. “I didn’t know…” He handed it to Hawke. “I only made one.” It was a small, knitted hat. “I thought maybe you could embroider it. And I have yarn enough to make another.” 

She turned and turned the little hat in her hands. Fenris pulled out his knitting needles, already looping more yarn on them to begin again. It was stupid. She had been so bad at motherhood she’d had nothing to offer them at all. But Fenris… she watched his hands work the simple pattern. He was better, and he drove her to be better. 

She chose a black thread and sewed a simple pattern she’d mastered long ago: a swooping bird. She finished long before Fenris had finished the second hat, so she added more to the pattern-- vines and flowers and eventually a wolf. 

It took a morning of concentrated effort to finish the second hat and embroider it. By the afternoon, they were ready to make their shrines and give their offerings. Hawke wandered the dark forest to the stream, where flowing water had smoothed out an army of stones and pebbles. She slowly made her way up the bank, collecting any rocks that caught her fancy. The dark green ones were particularly pretty. Fenris had said she also needed large flat ones. He was collecting his own, not far away. 

As she walked, she saw two saplings whose branches had intertwined. Strange behavior for trees, who preferred not to touch each other, but this was a strange forest. They would be healthier, grow stronger, if Hawke disentangled them, but she didn’t. As she looked down, she could see even their roots were entangled; there was no separating them. This was the spot. This was where they would place their shrine. 

She waited for Fenris to find her. 

“How do we pile up the stones?” 

Fenris started placing his in a small ring, and bade her to do the same. After some thought, she placed hers intersecting his, the edges of their circles entwined. Then he took the largest flat stone and placed it in the middle of his ring. He stacked more on top in a pyramid, and Hawke did the same. The end result reminded her of small pyres, but this time they were green and grey, and they would never go out. They took their offerings, the hats, some fruit, a couple of flowers and herbs they had found in the forest, and placed them within the outer rings. Then Hawk took the small vial she’d carried from Adamant, ashes from the pyre, and she sprinkled it across the shrines. 

This place was so different from Adamant. Adamant had been a decaying fortress in the center of a dead world, home to nothing but Darkspawn. Nothing could have lived there. But here… this forest was green, moss on every boulder. She could still hear the stream from this place, and there were birds above. Here there was life. Here, her children might have had a chance. 

Fenris put his arm around her shoulders, and she pulled herself close to him. “Do we say any words?”

“I do not know.”

So they sat in silence, each with their own thoughts. After a while she said, “They had different noses from each other.” 

A sharp intake of breath was all she got from Fenris, so she pressed on. He deserved to hear this, to know. 

“One was tall, like yours, or maybe a little like my mother’s. Somewhere in between. The other was flatter, like mine. Or more like Carver’s, actually. A little wide at the bottom. But they both…” Hawke paused to breathe as the wind picked up, blowing her hair in her face, “They both looked like you.” 

Fenris smoothed her hair back behind her ear, and she chanced a look at him. There wasn’t a shred of blame or anger there. Sadness, yes, concern. He should be so angry. “Can you tell me what happened?”

More guilt as Hawke realized she’d never sent a single letter she’d written. Her time away was just a blank space for him that ended in the death of children he didn’t know he had. So she told him everything that happened during her time with the Inquisition. They sat until her legs went numb, Hawke telling Fenris the story of their children. It was a short tale, and she did not lessen her mistakes for him. At the end, she asked, “Do you think you will be able to forgive me?” 

He didn’t answer her too quickly. She wouldn’t have believed him if he had. He rubbed a hand over her back, slowly. “Yes.” 

They fell into silence again, sitting together as the world darkened around them. She would need Fenris to lead her back to camp with his keen eyesight, but he didn’t seem to want to move yet. 

“I wish you had told me.” A simple statement, yet his words hit her like a hammer driving home a nail. Hawke swallowed and nodded. “I do not blame you for what happened at Adamant. I do not think I could put down my sword and watch my compatriots from the side. Our lives have always been risky. But I--” She saw the question in his eyes, the hurt, the deep hurt she caused him. 

“I just wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to face it. It wasn’t about you, it was… it was cowardice.” 

She cast her eyes on the ground. Fenris exhaled, expelling all the air from his lungs. 

“Ah. Fear." His voice was warmer now. "I suppose I know enough about what choices fear can make you take." He touched her face, bringing her gaze back to him. “I know how fear can drive you to hurt the people you love.” 

The sincerity in his eyes was both painful and encouraging. This man never needed a hand on her heart when he had embedded himself in her very soul. “Let’s hope you are as forgiving as I am then,” she said. 

Fenris laughed at this, a sharp bark into the night. “Never. But for you, I’ll try.”

~~

In the morning, Hawke’s mind felt clear. She hadn’t even realized how clouded it had become until suddenly the world came into focus around her. She waited impatiently for Fenris to wake up, and when he finally emerged, sleep still written across his face, she made her announcement immediately. 

“I don’t want to go to Weisshaupt.”

Fenris wiped a hand across his face and waited. 

“I don’t want to go to Tevinter, either.” 

He sat next to her, yawning, and poured himself some tea. “Where do you want to go?”

“Do you know,” she said, ignoring his question, “That for the past seven months or so, I’ve been taking orders from other people?” She leaned back on her heels and crossed her arms. “I did not care for it.”

A cautious smile spread on Fenris’s face. “Hawke, where are we going next?”

“You’ll come with me?”

“Always.” 

For the first time in a long while, the world seemed awash with possibilities. Running her hand over Fenris’s cheek, she pulled him in to press her lips against his. A chaste kiss, just an affirmation of love and trust and a promise of more to come. She rested her forehead against his for just a moment before jumping to her feet. 

“Then we go east.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my mind, Fenris is a bit wrong on the origin of the tradition. It's less about elves and more about slaves. 
> 
> Also like, of course he knows how to knit. His mansion was very cold and he needed more blankets. And socks. And hats. And scarves. And there were like three years there where he didn't know how to read so what else was he doing? He was knitting. 
> 
> And that's a wrap!


	7. Epilogue

“Leandra,” Fenris said, breaking the comfortable silence with a word that made Hawke cringe. 

“You never call me that." 

“No, I meant for a girl. We’ll call her Leandra.”

Hawke groaned. For a man with precious few traditions of his own, he seemed to cling to the Amell family’s pointless customs. Maybe it was _ because _he didn’t have any traditions. 

“Though we’ll have to call her Hawke," he continued, "so as not to confuse her with her mother.” 

“Maker’s breath, then what will people call _ me? _” 

“Leandra.”

She groaned again. “Then we better pray for a boy. And don’t say you'll call him Malcolm. That would be too weird.”

He rolled over to push the hair away from her face and rested a hand on her swollen belly. “I was thinking Varric.”

“Varric?” She supposed it made sense, in a Fenris sort of way, but guilt pitted her stomach. Things between them had not been left very well. Ten years of friendship and Hawke had leveled accusations at him, blamed him even if she hadn’t meant it. She had been so angry, so sad, so willing to lash out. What had he even been asking her? That she’d take a moment to breathe? She’d taken a bit more than that, in the end. She and Fenris had truly disappeared this time. If Varric had an inkling of where they were, he hadn’t tried to make contact. 

“He was with you when I could not be. He did what I should have done. And he made certain I found you again. I… I owe him a debt that cannot be paid.” 

“I think he prefers his payments in gold,” Hawke murmured. Louder she said, "He would _ hate _ that. Maker, I think the only name he would hate more is if we called the kid Bartrand."

"It would be to honor him," Fenris grumbled. 

Hawke snorted. "As if my child will ever bring honor to anyone. He'll probably end up being the first mage to become a templar." 

"Hawke…" 

"Or maybe he'll become Arishok. Do they let viddithari do that?" 

"Hawke." 

"No, no, even better, he'll be Black Divine. But then he'll fall in love with the real Divine, and the most forbidden romance in the history of Thedas will follow, resulting in the utter destruction of both Chantries and chaos across the realms." 

Fenris ran a hand through his hair. "I am now praying we have a daughter." 

“With both chantries in shambles, how will you know Andraste is listening?” Fenris sighed, but he didn’t move away. He tucked his elbow by her ear and rested his head upon his hand, waiting for her to be serious. She hadn’t named the last ones. Hadn’t even considered it. Naming them would have made them more real. Would it make it easier or harder if she lost this one? She closed her eyes. "If it really comes to honoring someone," she said, "Maybe should name him Jean-Marc.” 

“Who?”

“Stroud. That was his name. He saved my life in the Fade. I was going to stay, but he argued. I think he was trying to save...” 

She didn’t finish the sentence. The loss hurt less, now, but the memory of that night was something Hawke would be glad to forget. And now, with her belly bulging like it did before,_ just one baby this time,_ the healer had promised, she found the memory coming to mind too often, like a pebble in her boot she just couldn’t get out no matter how many times she upended it. 

Fenris also fell silent for a time. 

“Although I am grateful for what Stroud did," Fenris hedged, "the name is a little…” 

“Orlesian,” Hawke finished for him. 

“Perhaps we could name the fifth or sixth child Jean-Marc,” he mused, “after Varric, and Leandra, Bethany, Donnic--.” 

"Merrill--" Hawke chimed in.

His brows furrowed as he prepared to argue this, but he was interrupted as Hawke’s belly gave a strange twitch. Fenris’s eyes darted to his hand, astonishment supplanting disgust, his mouth dropping open. "She--" 

Hawke laughed, then tried to still herself so he could better feel it when the baby gave her second and third kicks in the world. How rare to see unrestrained joy on his face. At that moment she knew she would let him name his child whatever he wanted. Even Carver, if that’s what he chose. But as she watched him, astonishment slowly morphed into a smirk. "She agrees with me," he asserted with a cocky smile. Hawke raised an eyebrow. "She kicked you because she hates the name as much as I do." 

"Or she loves it so much she had to make it known with exuberant violence against her mother. A true Hawke, through and through." 

The baby kicked several more times in response, and simultaneously they said, "See?" 

His eyes dropped to her lips and he kissed her, a tender thing, long and slow and sweet. His hand cradled her face, and she ached with how much she loved him. She wondered if baby could feel it, too, this warm, heavy, agonizing feeling that started at her heart and seeped into her bones, permeating her lungs so that each exhalation breathed love into the world. 

Or maybe not, because as Fenris pressed more of himself to her, a series of kicks transferred from her abdomen to his, causing them to fall apart from each other. “Oh, hush,” she said, flicking her own belly. Fenris gathered her closer, so she could rest her head on his shoulder, and she looked up at the stars in the Rivaini sky. “Varric, huh? Little baby Varric Hawke…” she laughed. She’d have to write adult-Varric in the morning. 

_ Dear Varric, _

_ I decided to take your advice. Fenris and I are enjoying some fresh air, breathing as often as needed, and we won't be responding to summons any time soon. You would be welcome to join us here, of course. _

_ If you can't join us, not to worry. It's possible we'll soon be joined by another Varric, though this one will be quite a bit smaller and likely less hairy than his namesake. Only time will tell if he’s any good at telling stories like his uncle. _

_ I love you, and I promise to get better at writing. _

_ Hawke _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They had a girl and named her Leandra. Hawke calls her Andy, to Fenris's intense annoyance. It catches on, and occasionally he calls her that by mistake, too. She's a mage and she takes after her father in personality.
> 
> Later they had Marcus and Varric together. Neither of them became Black Divine.


End file.
